Tablet Magazine

Steimatzky Tells Israelis to Bring a Book to Bed

Elissa Goldstein — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:08:58 +0000

Well, this is probably the strangest, most compelling advertising campaign I’ve seen in a while: Steimatzky, the iconic Israeli bookstore chain founded in 1925, has issued a series of images of readers asleep in bed with their books… and the fictional—or non-fictional—protagonists of said books. (h/t to Liora Halperin for the Facebook tip-off.) Each image in the series is accompanied by the caption, “With the right book, you’re never alone.”

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Helen Keller's 1933 Letter to Book-Burning German Students

Adam Chandler — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:02:35 +0000

Slate’s new history blog recently posted a piece on a semi-obscure letter from Helen Keller to German university students in the wake of a decision to burn books that were deemed “un-German.” Among the books was Keller’s, whose political leanings were chronicled in How I Became a Socialist. As Rebecca Onion points out, Keller’s letter contained a prescient excoriation for Germany’s treatment of its Jewish citizens.

To the student body of Germany:
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'Ode to the Latke' by Edward Stankiewicz

Adam Chandler — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:10:03 +0000

If you’ve not read today’s piece by Frances Brent about the late Edward Stankiewicz, here’s your reminder. Also, to accompany the piece, we’re running one of Stankiewicz’s poems, which gives homage to the latke. Stankiewicz was a member of the linguistics faculty at the University of Chicago, which hosts the famous annual Latke-Hamantash Debate.

Ode to the Latke

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Dozens of Hezbollah Fighters Killed in Qusair

Adam Chandler — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:37:27 +0000

It’s being reported that as many as 30 Hezbollah fighters along with 20 other troops loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad were killed in battle today in Qusair, a rebel-held city that was taken back by pro-Assad forces over the weekend.

The fighting in Qusair is noteworthy for a number of reasons. The first is its importance to the long-term aims of the embattled Assad.

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Daybreak

Adam Chandler — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:02:49 +0000

• Peggy Cidor, a journalist and member of the Women of the Wall group, found her Jerusalem home had been sprayed with graffiti by vandals. Slogans like “Torah tag,” a reference to price tag attacks, was painted on her door and “Women of the Wall are villains” was found on the wall outside her apartment. [ToI]

• An Israeli commission has concluded that Muhammad al-Dura, a Palestinian boy and icon of the Second Intifada, may not have been struck by bullets at all during a shootout infamously captured by French television in September 2000. [NYT]

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How Neocons and Obama Liberals Made the Same Mistakes About the Middle East

David P. Goldman — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:00:54 +0000

Errors by the party in power can get America into trouble; real catastrophes require consensus.

Rarely have both parties been as unanimous about a development overseas as they have in their shared enthusiasm for the so-called Arab Spring during the first months of 2011. Republicans vied with the Obama Administration in their zeal for the ouster of Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak and in championing the subsequent NATO intervention against Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. Both parties saw themselves as having been vindicated by events. The Obama Administration saw its actions as proof that soft power in pursuit of humanitarian goals offered a new paradigm for foreign-policy success. And the Republican establishment saw a vindication of the Bush freedom agenda.

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Remembering the Late Linguistics Scholar, Yiddishist, Holocaust Survivor, and Painter Edward Stankiewicz

Frances Brent — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:00:26 +0000

In April, there was a belated memorial service in the parlor of Pierson College Master’s House for Edward Stankiewicz, linguistics scholar, Yiddishist, painter, and napkin artist. He died on the last day of January after several turbulent years, at 92. A student played the violin and the room slowly filled with a few aging students and loyal friends, a rabbi from Hillel, some elderly Slavicists and mathematicians, his son, and his daughter-in-law. The remembrances made me think of the kind of tribute made by public-school boys honoring a beloved teacher who had flogged them often and hard, for their own good. Stankiewicz was that way. As his son, Steve, explained, “He had no tolerance for what he considered stupidity, which included most people he ever came in contact with.” He was also the most polyglot person I’ve ever encountered—fluent in 14 languages: Polish, Yiddish, German, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Latin, Italian, French, English, and to a lesser degree Spanish, Bulgarian, and Romanian.

Stankiewicz was a friend, and for a while he and his wife Florence became surrogate grandparents for my children after our family relocated to New Haven from the Chicago area in 1991. He came to many birthdays and Hanukkah parties, gracing us with his elegantly tart turns of phrase and his dashed-off napkin drawings, caricatures of those who sat around our dining-room table. He especially liked subjects who had curly hair and protuberant noses, providing interesting lines for his nimble pen. While Florence was alive, he could still appear stoutly natty; he always wore a suit and tie and had a husky, throaty laugh. I can imagine that in the 1950s, as a young intellectual refugee, he must have been quite debonair.

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How The Nazis Destroyed Berlin's 50,000 Jewish Businesses, and Why Berlin Has Never Been the Same

Vox Tablet — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:00:24 +0000

Berlin has long had an anti-capitalist bent, part of its countercultural charm. But before the war, it was a more enterprising and bustling place, due in no small part to the nearly 50,000 Jewish-owned businesses located there. What happened to those businesses under Hitler is at the core of meticulous research by Humboldt University historian Christoph Kreutzmüller. While most of us are familiar with images of Nazi boycotts and smashed storefront windows, Kreutzmüller and his research team have assembled less familiar details about the escalating campaign of violence and administrative harassment that led to the demise of Jewish enterprises and, ultimately, the demise of the idea of Berlin as a center of industry and commerce.

Kreutzmüller’s findings were on display earlier this month in an exhibit at the Berlin Chamber of Commerce as part of the city’s yearlong reckoning with the 80th anniversary of Hitler’s rise to power. They can also be found (in German) in his new book, Final Sale: The End of Jewish Owned Businesses in Nazi Berlin, and in an online database of thousands of companies that used to exist in the city. Reporter Brian Zumhagen visited Kreutzmüller in Berlin to talk with him about his research and to visit several sites where Berlin’s forgotten Jewish enterprises once stood. [Correction: Christoph Kreutzmüller is currently a researcher and educator at the House of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, and not, as stated in the piece, a professor at Humboldt University of Berlin.] [Running time: 13:28.]http://cdn1.tabletmag.com/wp-content/files_mf/podcast_feature052013_berlinzumhagen.mp3

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Barbie's Dreamhouse in Berlin Has a Nightmare Opening

Adam Chandler — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:12:33 +0000

File under: This would be a funny story were it not so terribly serious…yesterday’s opening of the Barbie Dreamhouse Experience, ostensibly a museum-meets-theme-park in Berlin’s commercial Alexanderplatz area, was overshadowed by some (not entirely unwarranted) protests against Barbie as a reductive feminist symbol.

In the weeks before its opening, various groups voiced their disapproval of the temporary theme park. And on Thursday, demonstrators finally got their chance to show just how furious they are. In the early afternoon, an activist with the women’s rights group Femen climbed onto the gigantic shoe dressed only in a mini-skirt. She was carrying a burning cross on which a Barbie doll had been crucified. Parents and children stood nearby. The women screamed over and over again: “Being Barbie is not a career!”…
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The New York Jets Keep Shedding Jews

Adam Chandler — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:49:55 +0000

The Jewish minyan that once made up the front office of the New York Jets is starting to look more and more like an empty shul.

The first sign of danger: The firing of Jets General Manager Mike Tannenbaum, who (to quote Scroll Editor Emeritus), “despite coming from outside Boston, looking the part, and being named Mike Tannenbaum” isn’t actually Jewish. Then today, came the real news:

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Israeli Kids Cover Pearl Jam, Lobby Them to Play in Israel

Dana Kessler — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:27:29 +0000

There is a running joke in American pop culture about how difficult it is to get into a Pearl Jam concert. The Seattle-based 90s grunge rock band has maintained its popularity over the years and, married with their crusade against Ticketmaster, Pearl Jam remains a tough ticket to get. Nobody tell the Israelis that.

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The World Yearns for Kentucky Fried Chicken

Adam Chandler — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:51:29 +0000

Kentucky Fried Chicken has long been an American culinary institution spreading goodwill throughout the world [reference needed]. Colonel Harland Sanders, who is not really a colonel, but is a visionary, has brought American-style fried chicken to countless countries around the world–creating a veritable UN of yum no less vital than Ray Kroc’s Golden Arches. Where the Colonel’s secret recipe hasn’t worked, KFC has adapted. In Israel, for example, KFC recently went kosher, after swapping its milk-based chicken coating for a soy-based replacement.

Yesterday, Fares Akram blew the roof off the global yearning for Kentucky Fried Chicken when he wrote about a Gaza smuggling operation in which Khalil Efrangi, a pseudonymed savvy businessman, and others sneak chicken over (or rather under) the border from Egypt to Gaza. Next they deliver four-hour-old chicken to happy patrons at nearly $30 a bucket.

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Israelis in the Golan Heights Warily Eye the Syrian Border

Daniella Cheslow — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:31:25 +0000

When Israel was suspected of bombing weapons sites in Syria nearly two weeks ago, the Israeli government reacted coolly to Syrian threats of war. Bashar Assad, the common wisdom went, was too beleaguered to try a serious retaliation. But Israelis in the Golan Heights think differently. They hear the sounds of the fighting just over the border, and warily note when the occasional rocket or mortar lands in the Golan. Now, some Israelis are drilling emergency plans, seeking weapons permits, and recalling the 1973 war when Syrian troops marched across the Golan.

In Alonei Habashan, just before the Shavuot holiday, community manager Israel Bar told me the Syrian civil war has changed life there. Alonei Habashan is a religious moshav of 56 families. The moshav grows grapes for the Golan winery and runs a modest guest house. In the last few weeks, Bar said, two mortars fell in an open area just inside the moshav’s fence. On the side of the road that sweeps around Alonei Habashan is a concrete arsenal painted blue and locked with a black dial that looks like a safe. Usually, weapons sit here just in case, but Bar said last month he applied for permits from the army to allow locals to hold guns in their homes. The moshav council has guided each family for which bomb shelter to flee to in case of emergency.

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Daybreak

Adam Chandler — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:54:59 +0000

• Following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rejection of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plea to not delivery a sophisticated air-defense system to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, it’s being reported that 12 Russian warships are now patrolling the waters outside of Tartus, Syria. Yikes. [ToI]

• Meanwhile, Israel may have located what is believed to be a new natural gas field off the coast of Haifa. The discovery of a third natural gas field comes as Israel decides how much gas it will export on the market or import to maintain energy independence. [JTA]

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Bar Mitzvahs in Exotic Locations, From Jungles to Beaches to European Villages

Rebecca Meiser — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:00:29 +0000

Last December, on the beaches of the Playacar Palace Resort in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, Henry Goldberg became a bar mitzvah. The Potomac, Md., native stood barefoot on the sand, wearing a new tallit and chanting his haftorah as the waves of the Caribbean Sea crashed behind him. After a small reception, Goldberg celebrated his transition to Jewish adulthood by jumping into the hotel pool.

“At first I wanted to have my bar mitzvah in Asia, ‘cause I like everything Asia,” he told me. “But Mexico was fun, too. And I wasn’t really nervous or anything because I was only there with my family and friends.”

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Was Saul Bellow an Awful Father? Depends on Which Son You Ask.

Richard Kreitner — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:00:24 +0000

“The good thing about children having straight teeth,” Saul Bellow once noted, about the pleasures of paying for orthodontia, “is that they leave a clean mark when they bite the hand that feeds them.”

Saul Bellow’s Heart, Greg Bellow’s new book about his Nobel Prize-winning father, is in many ways one of these marks. Born the same year that Bellow’s first novel, Dangling Man, was published, Greg knew his father longer than any of his brothers (or his father’s five wives) did, and had to adjust the most to Bellow’s late-blooming fame. After his father’s death in 2005 produced “distinctly filial” reminiscences from “self-appointed sons and daughters,” Greg—a recently retired psychotherapist who describes himself as “skilled in unraveling murky narratives”—set out to unravel his own.

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Sitting Shiva for Smash—and, One Fears, a Generation’s Connection to Musical Theater

Rachel Shukert — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:00:09 +0000

This week was Shavuot, when the Jews received the Torah. But just as the good Lord giveth, so does he taketh away (is that in the Torah? Or is that a New Testament thing?). And this week was also one of loss so great, I fear I can hardly do justice to the resulting sense of emptiness in just once column, except to say it’s a comfort to know that on some level, humanity grieves together.

We’re all always sitting shiva for something or other—our youth, our illusions, the perfect sentence that flew out of our minds (never to return) when the person in front of us thrust his seat back, almost crushing our pelvis and breaking the screen on our laptop. (Yes, I’m on a plane right now, just like Thomas Friedman! If it crashes, this will be the last thing I ever write. Dynamism!)

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How YouTube and Radiohead Helped Transform Israeli Culture

Liel Leibovitz — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:00:08 +0000

Three weeks ago, Rotem Shefy was no different than hundreds of other Tel Avivis her age: talented, hopeful, and thoroughly unknown. Despite having served in the Israel Air Force’s prestigious singing troupe and having graduated from Israel’s top (and only) musical academy, Shefy, 28, settled into a life of small gigs and big dreams. She hadn’t the means to cut an album, but her considerable talent helped her secure a recurring spot in one of the city’s most stylish cafés, and she soon won a small but sizable audience.

For most Israeli artists, this is where the story ends. But thanks to YouTube, Radiohead, and accusations of cultural colonialism, Shefy became an overnight sensation.

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Happy Shavuot!

Adam Chandler — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:15:21 +0000

Faithful readers, we’re stepping away for Shavuot.

If you haven’t checked out our stellar Shavuot line-up, we’ve got video of Joan Nathan making blintzes, thoughts on why so few American Jews celebrate the holiday, everything else you need to know about Shavuot, and much much more.

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How Did a Jewish Site in Krakow Become a Nightclub?

Stephanie Butnick — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:41:13 +0000

Tensions are high in Krakow’s Jewish community after a new nightclub opened this past weekend—in a 19th century Jewish house of study. Mezcal, Krakow’s new spot for “cool dance parties with DJ’s and agressive, even metal concerts,” debuted this weekend in the former Chewra Thilim beit midrash, in Kazimierz, the city’s Jewish quarter.

Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza published photographs of the club’s construction, with walls being built in front of frescos, which were discovered during a 2008 restoration of the site, and sinks being installed where pews once stood. According to Jonathan Ornstein, director of the Jewish Community Center in Krakow, flyers were spotted around the city last week promising a club unlike any other—a shock to members of the Jewish community, who knew the building had been rented but were unaware of its unconventional new use. “To me it’s just an unnecessary thing that didn’t need to happen,” he told me.

How did this religious site end up as a boundary-pushing nightclub? According to the Jerusalem Post, the leaders of Krakow’s Jewish community signed off on a five-year lease of the property, which they gained ownership of in 1997, citing the financial strain of the building’s upkeep. Asked whether Mezcal, which is operated by non-Jewish Poles, is at all similar to the trendy event spaces opening in former synagogues around New York City, Ornstein gave an emphatic no. “It’s not a synagogue that was built in the 1950s,” he explained. “We’re talking about a 19th century building with important historical value.”

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The Doctor Is Out: Remembering Dr. Joyce Brothers

Rachel Shukert — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:44:06 +0000

Ladies and Gentlemen, the doctor is out.

Dr. Joyce Brothers, the legendary television psychologist and $64,000 question boxing maven (she later credited her expertise in this area to a producer suggestion, hours and hours of furious cramming, and a truly prodigious memory), has died of a respiratory ailment at age 85. Gentle, approachable and calmly articulate, Dr. Brothers was a ubiquitous but always charming media presence, from her television show to her columns to her multitude of cameo appearances, including The Simpsons, Hollywood Squares, Happy Days (in which she famously dissected the latent homosexual tendencies of the Cunningham’s dog—it’s on the blooper reel) and my personal favorite, her gracious turn on the country club catwalk during the Wilderness girl-themed, Robin Leach-hosted celebrity fashion show in my favorite movie of all time, Troop Beverly Hills (“clad in khaki for a luxury stroll or a walk in the woods.”)

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How Stephen Hawking Is Wrong

Liel Leibovitz — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:42:03 +0000

Now that the Stephen Hawking controversy has died down and the usual suspects have traded their predictable barbs, it would serve us well to examine, coolly and without prejudice, the contours of the affair. If for no other reason, we’re likely to see similar cases pop up in the near future, and rather than being swept anew each time by the powerful gales of resentment and rage, we would do well to try and define the contours of useful conversation. Let us steer clear of the blowhards on either side, whom we’ve lost long ago. Let us also avoid nudging the conversation towards absolute terms like legitimacy, and assume, bluntly, that any human action that is not illegal is a legitimate and permissible one. What we aim for is something much more practical and far less illustrious, namely some common ground for us, the majority of people who see the nuance in this situation and who strive to settle reason, justice, and common-sense. Towards that end, I propose, the following four principles apply:

The Priority Principle: As soon as news broke of the esteemed physicist’s snubbing of the Jerusalem conference, defenders of the Jewish State argued that Hawking’s response was nonsensical given the rush of brutalities surging everywhere from Damascus to the Democratic Republic of Congo. To the extent that it implies that one ought to focus on one conflict at a time, the argument is false; as Noam Sheizaf rightly pointed out in +972, “the genocide in Cambodia was taking place at the same time as the boycott effort against South Africa,” and any claim that we ought not to focus on one when there’s another going on may very well lead to inaction. This, however, is where the priority principle comes into play: to the extent that one chooses to be an engaged and responsible global citizen, one is expected to set priorities and act on them. Such is the mark of maturity: while we are all surrounded by a constellation of stimulations, we must, if we wish to lead a morally balanced life, concentrate our attention on those challenges that are most pressing, which, as all but the most hardened cynics would agree, means that priority ought to be given to any crisis involving the loss of human life. There is little doubt that, for many, living in the occupied West Bank is cruel and tragic. But 70,000 human beings have been slaughtered in the last two years just a few kilometers to the north in Assad’s inferno. Anyone, then, is free to protest Israel’s policies, but as long as they remain silent on other, and far more pressing, catastrophes, reasonable observers will be right to question whether singling out Israel mightn’t be guided by ulterior, and dishonorable, motives.

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Daybreak

Adam Chandler — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:05:42 +0000

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have his work cut out for him as he attempts to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin not to give Syrian dictator Bashar Assad anti-aircraft missiles. [ToI]

• Dr. Joyce Brothers, the famous television host, psychologist, and only woman to answer the “$64,000 Question” has died at age 85. [NPR]

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Eating Blintzes at B&H, One of New York's Last Dairy Restaurants

Vox Tablet — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:00:52 +0000

B&H Restaurant in Manhattan’s East Village was once part of a neighborhood that vibrated with Jewishness. Yiddish theaters peppered the area. Ratner’s was down the street, and the 2nd Avenue Deli was just across the way. Opened in 1942, the dairy-only B&H has outlasted most of these joints—sure, the 2nd Avenue Deli remains but in a new location and not even on 2nd Avenue—with its blintz and pierogi offerings gobbled up by hungry customers in a classic, narrow diner space brightened by lime green walls.

Little has changed on B&H’s menu. So says Eve Jochnowitz, a lifelong Greenwich Village resident, Yiddish scholar, and Jewish culinary ethnographer, who has just finished translating and editing a 1930 Yiddish cookbook by Vilna restaurateur Fania Lewando. In anticipation of Shavuot, for which many of us indulge in cheesecake and other dairy delights, Jochnowitz joined Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry for a visit to B&H to talk about the history of dairy restaurants, their forgotten cousin the “appetizing store,” and the unexpected pleasure of a soup made with pickles. Jochnowitz also offers her favorite vegan alternative to the cheesecake. [Running time: 15:00.]http://cdn1.tabletmag.com/wp-content/files_mf/podcast_feature051413_BHrestaurant.mp3

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What’s the Difference Between the Samaritan Torah and Jewish One? Thousands of Little Things.

Chavie Lieber — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:00:42 +0000

While Jews study a number of religious books—from the Talmud to the Shulchan Aruch—the text that provides the religion’s very foundation is the Torah. And the version of the Torah most commonly studied by Jews is known as the Masoretic text, the most authoritative Hebrew version of the Torah.

But it is not the only one.

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Law Is Law: Literary Critic Adam Kirsch’s Weekly Talmud Study

Adam Kirsch — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:00:41 +0000

Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world.

Last week, I discussed the Talmud’s declaration that “the world is a wedding,” a brief celebration that should be enjoyed to the full while it lasts. But what kind of enjoyment are the rabbis talking about? The passage in question mentions food and drink; but as we learned in this week’s Daf Yomi reading, the supreme earthly pleasure for the rabbis is always Torah study. This becomes clear in Eruvin 65a, when we hear about the study habits of Rav Chisda, whose daughter once asked him: “Does the master not need to doze a little?” Chisda replied with the Talmudic equivalent of “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”: “Soon [that is, in the grave], there will come days that are long [for the purpose of sleeping] and short [for the purpose of Torah study], and we will sleep very much.”

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Should Israel Back a Side in the War in Syria? And If So, Which One?

Jonathan Spyer — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:00:04 +0000

The civil war in Syria has led to a keen debate among the professional echelon tasked with advising policymakers in Israel. This debate has been reflected in a more subdued public conversation and occasionally in spectacular events—like the bombing of Syrian military sites around Damascus. So, what are the dividing lines in this Israeli debate? Does Israel back any side in the war in Syria? And what would be an optimal outcome from the Israeli point of view?

The history of the Israeli-Syrian diplomatic process is long and winding, and it is defined by failure. Direct talks in the 1990s failed to produce an agreement. Subsequent attempts to revive direct negotiations between Damascus and Jerusalem proved elusive. Turkey-sponsored indirect talks broke down after Israel’s Operation Cast Lead action in the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009. Yet discreet channels of communication were nevertheless maintained between Israel and the Syrian regime, often through private individuals close to the Israeli government.

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Judith Miller on the AP Seizures: We Can All Agree on This, at Least

Judith Miller — Tue, 14 May 2013 03:40:07 +0000

In a move that First Amendment lawyers and advocates call a sweeping and unprecedented assault on press freedom, the Justice Department has secretly seized two months of telephone records belonging to reporters and editors for the Associated Press, apparently in an effort to discover who leaked classified information to reporters about a foiled al-Qaida plot last year in Yemen.

The AP disclosed Monday that the Justice Department had informed the news organization that, as part of a criminal investigation, the government had secretly obtained its phone records. The AP says that the government obtained records of all incoming and outgoing calls for five reporters—Pulitzer Prize-winners Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo, Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan, and Alan Fram—editor Ted Bridis; the general AP office numbers in New York, Washington, D.C., and Hartford, Connecticut; and AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery—more than 20 separate telephone lines in all—for the months of April and May of 2012.

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Sundown

Adam Chandler — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:20:39 +0000

• The Associated Press is reporting that two months’ worth of phone records for some of its reporters and editors were secretly obtained by the Justice Department. [AP]

• The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is in hot water for unveiling a map of the Middle East in which Israel does not exist. At a German-funded project launch, the Hamas-employing group replaced Israel with “Arab Palestine.” [ToI]

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Destiny's Sheitel: A Modesty Battle Unfolds Over a Beyonce Ad

Adam Chandler — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:31:27 +0000

The good folks over at the Bowery Boogie have a story today about someone who is near and dear the hearts of many: the Houston-born Beyonce. Apparently though, not everyone loves the ubiquity of Bey.

How could one-half of America’s royal couple possibly misstep? Well, it has nothing to do with the national anthem. It’s not even Sasha Fierce so much as it is the image (see above) of a bikini-clad Bey at a bus stop on the Lower East Side’s Grand Street. Notice something strange about this H&M ad? According to the Boogie, something of an ongoing modesty war is taking place with that particular poster, which people continue to find partially covered up when they amble up to the bus stop at Grand Street and Columbia. Each time the covering is torn down, it seems that is taped up just as quickly.

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Why Netanyahu and Abbas Went to China

Tablet Magazine — Mon, 13 May 2013 18:26:55 +0000

This past week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited China. It was the first time Beijing ever simultaneously hosted the leaders of the two rival nations. As China’s new president discussed peace with Abbas, the media rushed to anoint the joint visits as evidence that China had come of age in the Middle East. The growing East Asian power, whose dependence on Arab oil grows higher every year, was depicted as ready to play a genuine role in the peace process. One influential analyst suggested that the new Chinese president’s peace initiative to Abbas was “a momentous shift in China’s foreign policy.”

In embracing this narrative, observers swallowed the story Beijing wanted while completely missing the real reason for Abbas’s visit. Abbas was not in China to herald a new dawn of Chinese peacemaking. Beijing invited him for one overriding reason: to provide diplomatic cover for Netanyahu’s far more strategic meeting with China’s new leaders.

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Crowd-Funding a Classic Yiddish Translation

Elissa Goldstein — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:09:56 +0000

Would you like to read a classic Yiddish novel about hasidic wife swapping, messianism and Polish nationalism?

That was a rhetorical question—of course you would. And the opportunity is within your grasp: Michael Wex, Yiddishist and author of the New York Times bestseller “Born to Kvetch,” is spearheading a campaign to translate Joseph Opatoshu’s 1921 masterpiece, In Poylishe Velder (“In the Forest of Poland”), into English. Says Wex:

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Evidence Grows Against Boston Bomber in Triple Homicide

Adam Chandler — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:51:14 +0000

It’s been three weeks since it was first reported that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was also now suspected of being involved in a triple homicide. In the context of the marathon bombing, the details of the unsolved 2011 slaying have the florid hallmarks of a tabloid splash: the three victims–two of whom (Erik Weissman and Raphael Teken) were Jewish–were believed to be have been killed in extraordinarily gruesome fashion on September 11, 2011 in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Over the weekend, new details emerged in a report that links both of the marathon bombing suspects to the murder with the evidence only mounting.

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Daybreak

Adam Chandler — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:37:31 +0000

• With limitless potential for either a romantic comedy or a Liam Neeson movie, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian Premier Vladimir Putin will reportedly meet this week to discuss Syria. The focus of the meeting will be a troubling arms deal between Syria and Russia. [NYT]

• The academic conference that astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has decided to boycott has a record of hosting Palestinian leaders, academics, and negotiators each year. [ToI]

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Newseum to 'Re-Evaluate' Hamas Honorees

Adam Chandler — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:16:17 +0000

Following the Newseum’s controversial decision to include two members of the Hamas-linked Al-Aqsa TV, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States government, in its annual memorial for fallen journalists, the D.C.-based museum is now reconsidering.

A few minutes ago, the Newseum’s manager of media relations sent out this statement:

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Best-selling Novelist Walter Mosley on Jewish L.A., and More

Harold Heft — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:00:59 +0000

In April 2010, an article appeared in this magazine arguing in favor of Walter Mosley’s inclusion in the American Jewish literary canon. The son of a black father (Leroy) and Jewish mother (Ella Mosley, née Slatkin), Mosley writes novels whose fictional heroes tend to be black males. Yet Mosely self-identifies as both black and Jewish, and significant elements of his work are identifiably linked to the Jewish experience.

Last month I caught up with Mosley at the Soho House in Manhattan to discuss his new novel, Little Green (the first installment of his famed Easy Rawlins series to appear since Blonde Faith in 2007). Our conversation allowed us to explore more deeply the influence of his Jewish identity on his writing.

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Shavuot Recipes for People Watching Their Weight or Avoiding Dairy

Devorah Klein Lev-Tov — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:00:45 +0000

My father was a staunch believer in always eating meat on Shabbat and Yom Tov because, as the rabbis in the Talmud taught, “There is no joy, except with meat and wine.” As a kid, I was an extremely picky eater, and meat was usually at the bottom of my list (except for cholent). That’s why my favorite holiday was always Shavuot, when it’s customary to eat dairy.

When I was a kid, my mother used to make some of my favorite foods, like blintz soufflé and macaroni and cheese, for Shavuot. I still love cheese and dairy products, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that my body’s metabolism isn’t quite what it used to be; like many Jews, I have difficulty digesting milk-based products. In addition, if I want to avoid gaining weight, I’ve found that I need to limit my dairy intake.

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Why the U.S.-Israel Alliance May Be Returning to Its Cold War Roots

Jordan Chandler Hirsch and Sam Kleiner — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:00:35 +0000

For two weeks in the summer of 1982, U.S. and Soviet jets dueled in the skies over Lebanon in one of the largest aerial dogfights since World War II. The pilots were Israelis and Syrians. In a classic Cold War proxy battle, U.S.-backed Israel humiliated Soviet-backed Syria, downing 86 MiGs without a single loss. It was the finest example of Israel’s strategic value to the United States: In return for the planes, Israel served as America’s shield and a model for the superiority of American-made weaponry.

In the summer of 2013, American-made Israeli jets are humiliating Syria once again. Israel’s ability to evade sophisticated Russian-made anti-aircraft systems to bomb Syrian territory over the past week does not just signal a possible expansion of Syria’s civil war or the latest salvo in the struggle with Iran. It also suggests that the U.S.-Israel alliance may be returning to its Cold War roots—which is good news for both countries.

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After Our Daughter’s Car Accident, We Found Comfort in the Jewish Calendar

David Gottlieb — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:00:29 +0000

We were in downtown Chicago on Feb. 17 when my wife Galit got the first call. Our niece Maya, 24, had been in a bad car accident near our house, some 28 miles outside the city. Her parents were away, so we needed to come to the hospital. We were told that the person driving the car was also injured, but that person was unconscious and the paramedics and police officers on the scene hadn’t been able to ascertain her identity.

It wasn’t a mystery for long. Minutes later, Galit’s phone rang again: The driver of the car was our daughter Becky, 23. Forty minutes later—an eternity—we were led to Becky and Maya’s bedsides.

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What Would Freud Say About Mother's Day?

Adam Chandler — Fri, 10 May 2013 20:44:28 +0000

Last week when a Friend-of-Tablet reminded us that Sigmund Freud’s birthday was fast approaching, he urged us to pay tribute to one of the most influential figures in history, Jewish history, and romantic comedies. This is, of course, a near-impossible task, but since Freud’s birthday this year (this past Monday) was painstakingly close to another big celebration (Mother’s Day), I thought a better question to ask would be: What would Freud say about Mother’s Day?

To help, I enlisted Daphne Merkin, who in addition to being a Tablet contributor and a celebrated writer and critic, knows more than a thing or two about Freud and the intellectual domains in which he dwelled.

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Scroll Verse: Boris Gerus

Adam Chandler — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:20:43 +0000

The Scroll is adding to our poetry output with Scroll Verse, a recurring feature that presents the works of Jewish poets–or in some cases, poets who write on Tablet themes or have Jewish souls. Our last poem was Adding It Up by Jake Marmer.

Our latest installment is a work by the Polish poet and translator Boris Gerus, who wrote this poem in Hebrew. Friends and fans are Gerus are working to raise funds for Gerus, who suffers from the rare Takayasu’s Disease.

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Female Rabbis in New York Lead Service in Solidarity With Israel's Women of the Wall

Tracy Levy — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:41:32 +0000

A torah scroll was raised high into the air this morning over New York City’s Madison Square Park during the tail end of the city’s morning rush hour. Men with briefcases and tourists with maps and cameras slung around their necks stopped to watch the prayer service and look curiously at the sign hung nearby, which read “We stand with Women of the Wall.” The women-led service was part of an ongoing effort organized by Iris Richman, a New York-based rabbi, to show solidarity with the Women of the Wall.

The morning service, held in a park with dogs and children frolicking nearby and onlookers observing respectfully, stood in sharp contrast to the events which took place this morning at the Western Wall, where thousands of ultra-Orthodox protesters threw rocks and water bottles at the group of women gathered to pray.

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Why Is the Newseum Honoring Two Hamas Members?

Adam Chandler — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:02:18 +0000

During last year’s Operation Pillar of Defense, three Palestinian terrorists were killed when an Israeli airstrike struck their car while traveling in a convoy in Gaza. It was reported at the time and parroted by the Reuters, AP, AFP that the two men were not terrorists, but journalists driving in a car that was clearly marked ‘TV.’ The Times‘ David Carr wrote a story in which he led with their deaths as emblems of intrepid journalists targeted by forces that sought to use war as a cover to kill journalists. On A-1, Israel was implicated.

As I argued at the time, Carr and others were wrong to honor the men as fallen truth-tellers because…well…for two of the men their “media outlet” was a state-run Hamas organ that had been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States government in 2010 for glorifying civilian murder and indoctrinating children to become suicide bombers.

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The Tables Turn at the Western Wall

Adam Chandler — Fri, 10 May 2013 14:34:27 +0000

As we noted in Daybreak (and Sundown yesterday), this month’s Rosh Hodesh service at the Western Wall was slated to be something of a turning point in the struggle between the religious groups that worship there. And a turning point it was. Given cover by a recent Jerusalem district court ruling, the female worshipers–led by the Women of the Wall–were protected by Israeli police, a change from previous months when the group’s Rosh Hodesh services had been marked by arrests and detainments.

Instead, it was a few ultra-Orthodox men (among the thousands protesting) who were arrested as rocks and chairs were hurled at the women and whistles were blown in an attempt to drown out the prayer. The women worshipers, previously the insurgents, were able to complete their service before being escorted away from the Western Wall and out of the Old City by police.

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Daybreak

Adam Chandler — Fri, 10 May 2013 13:01:31 +0000

• Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews clashed with Jerusalem police while attempting to disrupt the Women of the Wall prayer service at the Western Wall this morning. Three men were arrested and two police officers were injured during the protest. The women completed their prayer service despite being targeted with plastic chairs, small rocks, and other objects. [ToI]

• There are reports emerging of an explosion at an Iranian military chemical plant west of Tehran earlier this week. [IsraelDefense]

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In Tel Aviv Hipster Society, Having a Baby Is Social Suicide

Dana Kessler — Fri, 10 May 2013 04:00:49 +0000

In most places in Israel, having children is essentially the law: Observant Israelis feel obliged to observe the mitzvah pru urvu—be fruitful and multiply—from Genesis 1:28. And secular Israelis seem to adhere to the Zionist idea of having kids as part of the demographic war. In Tel Aviv, on the other hand, the issue is more complicated. There are two opposing attitudes when it comes to kids: one anti and one very much pro.

And it’s just my luck that most of my friends belong to the anti-baby side. So for me, in Tel Aviv’s hipster society, having a baby has been basically social suicide.

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Baz Lurhmann's 'Gatsby' and the Figment of Meyer Wolfsheim

Rachel Shukert — Fri, 10 May 2013 04:00:10 +0000

Are you tired of hearing about The Great Gatsby yet? I kind of am! In its latest iteration, it’s a movie by a filmmaker I don’t like, based on a book that I have never—bear with me—been totally crazy about, set in a era that has always seemed, in the collective subconscious at least, more a flashy theme for a supermodel’s birthday party than one with any meaningful historical context or populated by living, breathing human beings.

And yet, I’m still going to see it, and not just because I recently realized that my deep emotional attachment to Leonardo DiCaprio remains the longest—if most one-sided—romantic relationship of my life. And I’m going to see it in 3-D. Not for the usual, joked-about reasons—Jay Gatsby flinging his many colored shirts right into the audience, the eerily protuberant eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg popping straight off the screen and directly into your soul—but because I can’t resist the most delicious irony this spring since the Met Ball went punk.

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Sundown

Adam Chandler — Thu, 09 May 2013 21:52:43 +0000

• Western Wall rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz called for calm ahead of tomorrow’s potentially contentious Rosh Hodesh service featuring the Women of the Wall. While a recent court ruling guarantees that no women worshipers will be arrested, tomorrow’s service has an added dimension of controversy given the temporary nature of the arrangement. [JTA]

• More on the Hezbollah threats against Israel and Hassan Nasrallah’s statement about receiving new weapons from Syria. [NYT]

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The Long-Awaited Return of Rick Moranis

Adam Chandler — Thu, 09 May 2013 19:46:59 +0000

Two questions you might be asking yourself right now: Was the return of Rick Moranis really long-awaited? Who is Rick Moranis again?

To answer your first question: I spent a lot of my hours indoors so I don’t know exactly how loud the public clamoring is for his return, but had Moranis retired during the internet era’s blossom, I think this would be a bigger story. To answer your second: You know, he’s that guy…from Spaceballs, Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors, My Blue Heaven, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Parenthood, and most every movie from the late 1980s and early 1990s.

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Hezbollah Offers to Help Syria Recapture the Golan

Adam Chandler — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:44:11 +0000

Just days after a series of airstrikes on Syrian missile sites, there appears to be no signs of things cooling down in the region. Beyond the obvious horror of the conflict itself, which Jodi Rudoren chronicled earlier today through the prism of the million-plus displaced Syrian refugees who are struggling to survive, there is the widespread fear that the Syrian civil war will extend beyond its borders.

Two troubling stories this afternoon underscore that fear. In a televised address today from Lebanon, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah avered that he and Hezbollah would gladly help Syria recapture the Golan Heights, which has been held by Israel since 1967 and has enjoyed relative calm for decades.

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